Motivating Performance by Phil Higson

Motivating Performance

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Motivating Performance

HOW TO BE A BETTER MANAGER

Motivating Performance What’s in this guide: Page 3

About the “How to be a Better Manager…”

Using the Guides

What Do We Mean by PERFORM?

Develop the POTENTIAL of Employees

Putting EXPERTISE to Work

REVIEW Results to Monitor Performance

Placing a FOCUS on Priorities

Creating OPPORTUNITIES

Allocating RESOURCES

MOTIVATION – the Heart of Performance

Summary Checklist

Tools

1: Recognizing Potential

2: Putting Expertise to Work Question Checklist

3: Reviewing Results – Assessing Performance

4: Reviewing Results – Training and Development

5: Aligning Team Goals

6: Setting SMART Goals

7: Opportunity Checklist

8: Matching Goals and Resources

9: Motivation Checklist

10:Re-focus Motivation Tool

Motivating Performance

How to be a Better Manager ... Motivating Performance is one of a series of practical, thought-provoking guides,

designed to help you deal with a wide range of management ideas, activities and situations. Whether you are a new manager, or one who wants to hone or develop existing skills, we’re sure you’ll find something valuable in any of these guides. This series of e-guides is published by Apex Leadership Ltd. The guides have been developed by a team of professional managers, consultants and educators. The full range of titles is available from Apex Leadership Ltd, or from the Happy Manager.com. Use these guides to benefit from our wealth of management expertise. Let us help you find: a better way to manage...” Phil Higson & Anthony Sturgess Directors, Apex Leadership Ltd

Using the guides Each guide contains information, insight and inspiration on essential management topics. The best way to use the guides is to read through each section in turn, ensuring you pause for reflection wherever you see the “Consider...” points. Be sure to answer any questions posed, wherever they appear - they are there for a reason!

Consider ...

Tools ...

After you’ve worked through the guide, read the summary checklist. This both summarizes the contents of guide, and gives you actions to take to help you use it. Finally, work through the tools. These have been designed to help you make the most of the advice given in the guide. 

Click on the tool buttons where they appear for an in-text hyperlink to the actual tool.



At the end of each tool you can simply click on the “return” link to get back to your place in the guide.

Both the tools and the summary checklist are simple to use as handy references at the end of the guide, or as convenient memory aids to carry with you.

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Motivating Performance

Motivating Performance 1

What Do We Mean by Perform?

Performance management often gets a bad press. Not many employees look forward to their performance appraisal and perhaps even fewer managers look forward to conducting them. So are they, as some would argue, a waste of time? Or are we missing something important in the performance process? Performing at work is much more than just turning up to do a job. But for many this might be what work has become. Your job as a manager is to engage your colleagues so that they want to do more, much more than just turn up. This guide explains how to use the PERFORM model to get the best from your colleagues. Performance management systems can sometimes have a misplaced emphasis on following a process. As a consequence there isn’t sufficient attention placed on how you actually motivate people to make a difference, to perform. As Peter Drucker suggests, there is no more important activity because: “people determine the performance capacity of an organisation. No organisation can do better than its people.” Performance management is about good management that delivers for customers, individuals, their teams and the organizations that employ them. How does this happen? It is only really likely to come from well-motivated employees. Understanding the importance of motivation, and how to encourage and sustain it, is perhaps the real key to managing performance.

Consider ... Managing performance is not about coercion; it's about encouraging people to work to their potential - because they want to. How do we do this? By: 1. Putting motivation at the heart of performance management. 2. Managing the factors that enable and encourage superior performance

Motivation is at the heart of performance and knowing how to motivate is a critical management skill. Think back to a time when you felt really energised, excited and yes, motivated at work? What was it that motivated you?

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Motivating Performance

It's more than likely that you were doing something you were really interested in or that seemed especially worthwhile. It might be that you had a lot of freedom to get on with things, in a way you saw fit. You may have been energised by the people you worked with or the way in which you were led or managed. Motivation is one of the most important aspects of good management. Without understanding and managing motivation in your people, you are unlikely to see improved performance. On one level motivation may be complex and difficult to manage, with different people being motivated by different things. Or do managers over-complicate things sometimes, or worse, get in the way? Ironically, it can be managers themselves who end up de-motivating employees. Most people start new jobs with some degree of excitement or enthusiasm. They want to impress, to succeed, and to perform. There is a wealth of evidence to illustrate that people are motivated at the prospect of doing something worthwhile. It may be then that the real job of management is to sustain the natural motivation that most people want to bring to their work. The starting point for managers then is to find out what motivates people. After that, the key to superior performance is to manage the conditions which enable people to succeed, and then try not to get in the way! This guide is based on the PERFORM model.

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Motivating Performance

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Motivating Performance

MOTIVATION - the Heart of Performance

One of the most important aspects of management is to be aware of what motivates people. Put simply, motivation is the intent or desire to act. However, people can be motivated by different things and motivation is essentially a complex and often personal issue. For some, external (or extrinsic) factors are important, such as salary, wealth, perks, status and position. For others, motivation is more about intrinsic factors, such as feeling satisfied, enjoying a sense of challenge, feeling valued, or realizing their potential. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can be considered as a continuum. At one end we find some people motivated by tangible, extrinsic benefits. Others may be motivated by factors at the opposite end of the spectrum. These people tend to forego the tangible rewards of monetary benefits, in favour of internal drivers.

Extrinsic

Intrinsic

It's important to remember that people can easily move along any continuum. Rather than considering these motivational factors as opposites, try to remember that most people are motivated by a combination of the two. And that such motivation is also influenced by a number of other complex, social and economic factors, such as age, family status, and so on. So what does this all mean in practice? 

Intrinsic and extrinsic factors can have a major impact on a person’s performance.

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Being satisfied at work, and secure in your job, will not in themselves drive you to do more or achieve more, but their absence may have an impact.

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The absence of extrinsic factors may result in a high-performing employee leaving the organisation despite other intrinsic motivational factors being in place.

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Promising someone a bonus or salary increase may have a short term effect on their performance but once given, the effect is lost.

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If a person is not in a job that is right for them it’s less likely they will perform well – recruit carefully and position people where they can best contribute.

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Motivating Performance

Tool 9: Motivation Checklist This tool provides prompts and questions to help you motivate yourself and others. Remember that motivation is a complex matter, and that everybody is different. A person’s motivators may change from time to time. About you

Be motivated yourself – be clear what motivates you? Be an example Be positive

About the situation

Is there a stable, healthy, working environment? Are there issues with pay and reward? Are there frustrations over positions or promotions? Are jobs well designed? Is it clear how people contribute and can make a difference? Do people have the right tools to do the job? Do people feel part of a team? Are there good working relationships? Is work enjoyable? Is there a sense of community? Do people have the opportunity to realise their potential?

Towards others

Ask what motivates someone Give praise often Be interested Make sure you really listen Be open, fair and transparent Expect the best in others

Things to ask/do

What might be getting in the way – what de-motivates? Think about workload, people, processes, responsibilities, job design, relationships, stress, burn-out (too much) or bore-out (too little), non-work issues. Remove or compensate for de-motivators. How can you ensure that work is challenging and interesting? If someone is frustrated in their job, how can you help them to re-frame what they do? Why did they originally get into this kind of work? Have you set challenging and meaningful goals? Do they have access to the information that tells them how they are doing? Do you give good feedback regularly? Enhance and reinforce motivators Return to chapter

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Motivating Performance

HOW TO BE A BETTER MANAGER Updates For more information on the content of this e-guide, and other related topics, visit: www.the-happy-manager.com Join the community: subscribe to the Happy Manager Newsletter for regular updates and advice on better ways to manage. Join the conversation: bookmark the Happy Manager blog. (www.the-happy-manager/blog) Leave any comments, suggestions or examples of your own experiences for the benefit of other readers.

Titles available: How to be a Happy Manager Have a Good Workday How to Build a Happy Workplace Workstyle, Lifestyle Build a Better Team Team Building Exercises Team Health Check The Problems with Teams Why is Teamwork Important? Leadership Essentials Defining Leadership Leading with Style and Focus Leading Insights Transformational Change Sustaining Change Making Change Personal

It's All About Performance 15 Performance Management Tips Managing Performance and Potential Performance Management Skills Performance Management Toolkit Conducting a Performance Review Manage Your Own Performance Motivating Performance Managing for Strength to Strength Managers Make the Difference Re-defining Middle Management Do More with Less Managing Time and Priority Extreme Thinking: Unlocking Creativity SMART Goals, SHARP Goals Making Better Decisions What's the Problem?

Copyright Apex Leadership Limited 2012 Efforts have been made to contact the copyright holders of works referred to in this publication. Apex Leadership Ltd hopes that copyright holders will permit references and quotations, where small extracts of their work have been used. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers. First published in Great Britain 2012 Copyright Apex Leadership Limited 2012

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Motivating Performance

HOW TO BE A BETTER MANAGER Notes

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